St John's Cemetery

Renee Kesler leads the prayer during an Easter Sunrise Service at the Knoxville Botanical Gardens on Sunday, April 5, 2015. Saul Young/News SentinelBuy PhotoSt. John's Lutheran Church will hold an Easter sunrise service at Old Gray Cemetery. (Photo: Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel )Buy PhotoStanding among weathered stones of the dead, worshippers in an urban Knoxville graveyard each Easter morning celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.For 13 years on Easter Sundays, St. John's Lutheran Church has moved from cemetery to sanctuary. The stone church's annual 7 a.m. Easter sunrise service begins in historic Old Gray Cemetery a few steps across Broadway. Church members, many of whom have made this their Easter tradition, come of course. But half or more of these worshippers each year are neighbors of the 544 N. Broadway church. Residents from Fourth & Gill and Old North Knoxville create a circle with people without any home. They stand listening to birds singing, amidst almost always blooming dogwoods and tall trees, before St John's senior pastor the Rev. Steve Misenheimer begins with the words "The Lord is risen!""It's just a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God as you look out across that congregation — it's such a diverse group," Misenheimer said.Buy PhotoThe Rev. Stephen Misenheimer inside of St. John's Lutheran Church in Knoxville on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. St. John's Lutheran will hold an Easter sunrise service at Old Gray Cemetery. (Photo: Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel )The cemetery's part of the hour-long service isn't long. Worshippers stand there about 10 minutes before walking a few steps across Broadway into the 1913 Gothic revival stone church's sanctuary filled with Easter lilies. But those minutes are powerful ones. "Our Christian faith tells us we believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. That's part of the Apostles' Creed... (Knoxville News Sentinel)